Children Killed by Teenage Suicide Bomber in Kabul

Posted on Sep 8, 2012

The Guardian

Policemen survey the area in Kabul, Afghanistan, after Saturday’s blast.

A teenage suicide bomber who had posed as a street hawker killed six people, including four children gathered around an iPhone, when he detonated explosives hidden in his backpack near the headquarters of the NATO-led military force in Kabul, Afghanistan, on Saturday.

The Taliban has claimed responsibility for the blast, but a spokesman for the group said it had sent an adult attacker who killed only U.S. soldiers while targeting a CIA base. The Afghan Ministry of Interior suggested the Haqqani network, newly classified as a terrorist group by the U.S. government, could be responsible for the attack.

“The killer was a child, aged 12 to 14,” said Haji Wasiullah Taj, chief of district 10 where the bombing happened. “A lot of sellers go down this road and the security teams thought he was one of them, but he was not known to the children here.”

… It was not clear why the teenage bomber had ignored a host of diplomatic and military targets within a few dozen metres of where he struck – including the entrance to Nato headquarters, the outer gate of the US embassy and the residences of the Italian, Indian and Spanish ambassadors – to decimate a group of Afghan civilians.

“His aim was to get to Nato headquarters or the US embassy. The other children were apparently giving him a hard time, but we don’t know the reason why he detonated [his explosives] here,” Taj said.